Queer Chaos Returns
The 20th week of queer things we’ve been up to and into
We are still here; they couldn’t eradicate us. No matter how many laws they pass, we still will gather in our streets. We will celebrate their failure and our fight for liberation for an entire month. No matter how many of us they harm, Pride will always be a protest and our queer joy will be our resistance. ~Erin Reed1
As a thank you for being on this very queer journey with us, we are sharing another something here with you all FIRST. We are excited to announce that Amie is now working with the awesome crew at Buy Olympia, a Pacific Northwest independent, curated publisher and distributor of art and goods by real human artists. Amie will be turning some of her favorite artworks into prints, which will be made and delivered by Pat & team at Buy Olympia. The first print is… *drum roll*
Queer for Fear cover art prints, NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE.
We told you all about H’s book, Queer for Fear, and the cover art Amie made for it… and now you or your best ghoulfriend can have this artwork to hang in your home, office, coffin, or dungeon. It’s intentionally sized at 8x10 to be able to slip right into a standard frame and thoughtfully priced to be as affordable as possible for the most people. So, go grab your very own print (and stay tuned for more prints, coming soon)—and thank you for supporting our very gay work and endeavors and creations in numerous ways.
Drag Me to Dinner, hosted by Murray Hill and judged by Bianca Del Rio, David Burtka, Neil Patrick Harris, and Haneefah Wood. How stupid is Drag Me to Dinner? It’s sooo stupid. So charmingly and chaotically and perfectly stupid—like so many of the very best queer things. The show takes a left turn at Albuquerque and heads right to camp. The premise: On each episode, two drag queen teams, with 40 drag queens featured in all, go wig-to-wig to see which pair throws the most fabulous dinner party. But the “competition” is all in service of letting drag creativity, artistry, and imagination shine, with hijinks and hilarity mattering much more than any displays of culinary competence. Giving cable access TV vibes, the show embodies a “flawed is the new fierce” ethos (H wrote about this ethos, put forth by Peaches Christ and embodied by Martiny Downsize, in Queer for Fear—how’s that for a book plug!?!). A highlight was watching Peaches introduce the judges and the unprepared masses to the Chicken Centipede “beak to anus” (IYKYK). This show was the last thing Peaches and Heklina shot together, so the series ends on a bittersweet note when we say a final goodbye to Heklina and her infectious cackle.
Queer trashy reality shows. We don’t often watch reality shows, but this week we needed something we could “watch” while also writing and working, so we decided to mainline the queer seasons of The Ultimatum and Are You the One? In The Ultimatum: Queer Love (note: the full season is not “out” yet), four couples enter the show, with one of the pair wanting marriage and the other not feeling quite ready. The couples then “split” up to date the other contestants in a sapphic smorgasbord until they choose new partners to live with for three weeks in a “trial marriage.” After those three weeks, they enter a trial marriage with their original partner. On the other hand, Are You the One? Season 8 (thank you Courtney for the recommendation) is basically a never-ending pansexual orgy during which 16 contestants are trying to win one million dollars by figuring out the group as 8 pairings of perfect matches.
Now, bear with us (this write-up is longer than we expected for trashy TV), but there’s something interesting, albeit chaotic, that happens when the cishet expectations of who should date/marry whom are bent. The shows certainly become an all-you-can-date/kiss buffet. The formatting of both shows allows for gentle underscoring of polyamory—with numerous contestants having physical and/or emotional relationships with multiple people. Polyamory is a natural human state—and monogamy is a choice, so we’re here for reality TV that challenges the tenants of the cis-hetero nuclear family (even with one of the shows being centered around marriage). The two shows certainly have very different tones, but both serve up plenty of messy queer drama, which totally hooked us. We are game to dish with any of you all about all the players in either of these shows.
Note to production: If there are future queer seasons of The Ultimatum can we please replace the useless and out-of-her-depths straight host with Tiff’s friend Natasha, an LHB queen if there ever was one. Kthxbai.
Under the Desk News by V Spehar. One of the things we’ve struggled with in our Queerest Year is finding queer sources for news. Behold, this charming and stylish newscaster who delivers the news lying on the ground under their desk. The daily news is timely and snappy—our favorite day being Good News Thursday featuring the Banana Shirt.
